Whitehall

Aggressive code enforcement is government abuse of citizens

Friday January 25, 2013 12:12 PM

To the Editor:

So Mayor Maggard wants to increase focus on code enforcement this year, according to a recent story in the ThisWeek Whitehall News. Does this focus include the same behavior from officials as we've seen in the past, such as trespassing, violation of citizens' Constitutional rights, bullying, harassment, selective enforcement and governmental vigilantism? Has Mayor Maggard communicated to staff the wrongfulness of these past behaviors and her expectation of more citizen-friendly/constitutionally respectful code enforcement?

As a citizen, I remind Mayor Maggard that we have Supreme Laws in this nation which she swore to uphold in her oath of office and that supersede grass and weed inspection and her desire to make the city "look more appealing." It is this goal alone that breaches her oath and shows a fundamental lack of respect, appreciation and understanding of our Constitution's basic tenets, the ignorance of which is set to trample our rights further with her simplistic yet dangerous directive.

Strong-arming citizens into code compliance shows blindness to the nature of pride and civic responsibility in that it is and always was a choice in a free society. Robbing us of and making punitive that choice is clearly authoritarian in nature and contemptible for that which we hold so dear -- namely, our freedom and liberty, ours without asterisks and uncontaminated from the treacherous adornments she is willing to attach to them in her misguided goals.

Further, I've heard her characterize Whitehall as lower income. Why then is she ignoring that fact and causing further misery for citizens in trying to wring more money from their already depleted pockets? It is with these kinds of dangerous, foolhardy, lazy, unimaginative, disrespectful governmental mindsets that my problems with her lie.

I urge everyone to visit faceoffmovement.blogspot.com to see how this 21st-century encroachment is being fought and ohiofaceoff.blogspot.com to read about local code-enforcement stories.